​Operation resilience: Year 3. Or 5, depending on when you start counting. All points of origin exist in relation to each other, like constellations forming a mythic referent, a navigation tool, or simply existing as points in space: hydrogen, helium, and cosmic dust. “Things That Survived The Winter” (TTSTW) is a poem, a concept, an aspiration, and an evolutionary performance collaboration.

Hermit hutsSheets of plasticAnimal pathsThree parallel livesThe cracks in the sidewalkWhen I close my eyesI see the blackIn my nightmares I am dying and we never met

Hope, fear, relic, and dreams. Loving people with their swords up, imagining futures based on past, present, and unformed future. Multiplicity of not just narrative, but of self.

“Prediction is the most characteristic and pervasive element in animal behavior and in human speech and thought: it is the dynamo of the feedback cycle. We make predictions literally all the time, and survive only by their accuracy. Our slightest automatic movement - reaching for a piece of food, glancing up to see what made the unexpected noise - is possible only because we can make that continual alternation of tiny predictions and corrections to converge on the target. Speech, conscious thought, our experience of making choices, all reflect the process by which the brain uses the past to predict what may be coming.” (The Search for Solutions, Horace Freeland Judson)

In stating this, Judson speaks on behalf of science while honoring predictive theory and soft edges around dreams, past ways of knowing that were right for their age, and esoteric practices that may not pass the scientific lens, but nonetheless hold great consequence for believers.

Judson goes on to observe, “Strong predictions force the growth of theories. They turn hypothesis into research programs.” In that space, we can hold great faith for the endeavors of scientists and artists. Scientists seek the concrete, the knowable, the feedback that assures our logical mind, cures diseases, frees our energy. They test their theories with microscopes and formulas and the eyes of the scientific community. Artists seek the edges of the unknown, aspects of the human psyche, the cusp of organic social movements, the aesthetics that will come to define the next era before anyone knows it has begun. We test theories on our audiences, shaping a mirror and a coded message that will emerge in relation to its resonance and resources.

TTSTW: This is our research program. What started as an architecture and a possibility of becoming, over the last several years formed a book, a structure, a soundtrack, a series of works-in-progress performances, and a test of elasticity to navigate change.

“Things That Survived The Winter: A Brief History”In 2015, over Skype from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania, I met with artist Dan Cole who introduced the work of his band Rexedog, and we began to shape “Things That Survived The Winter’s” methods and structures. At that point, my working title was the esoteric “Bi-Con-Port” [an idea about divergence and carriage that became an underlayer and a still-intended duo work]. Dan is an incredibly versatile artist, flowing between painting, printmaking, sculpture, video, and music. I admire his ability to jump in, throw ideas around, and continually be a positive presence. The music developed for the soundtrack forms TTSTW’s backbone, Rexedog’s take on a 21-part structure of core concepts from “Spring Freeze”, my artist-memoir (2013). ​

In 2016, I introduced the project to two aerialist friends from Madison, Wisconsin, and together we presented the first performance of concepts: Allegiant, Zombie Bodies, The Apocalypse Rewind, Oceans Ignited, and Reflections - opening for a friend’s solo tour. Ours was a primarily aerial-driven starting point, an establishment of new collaborative relationships, and a hybrid of personal and transpersonal narrative dramaturgy. I am thankful for the talented and hard-working artists Jess Brusch and Luv Joy Seamon, who were willing to dive in for the sake of artistic research. We put on a stripped-back, no fancy lights or costume, ecstatic dance into being that was a beacon and a beckon for future development. ​

Time and space continued. Following a move back to Philadelphia and still lacking substantial time and resources, I continued with solo aspects of the score knowing that my hypothesis, a hybrid of visual arts and performance work, needed to be “proven” both to myself and my audiences. I spent about 50 hours sewing a wearable sculpture piece that was also a performance instigator, which then got developed in the context of “Circus Sessions” creation lab as the “Infinity Labyrinth” (“yay, people", says my lonely soloist heart). I went on to build a floor piece around it called "Continuous Deforming Landscape" (an og underlayer that grew to become a primary theme) in residence at the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts, and the videos are (here) if you’d like to find them. ​

Photos by Steve Sarafian

I spent the last year trying for grants, and the Leeway Foundation came through with an Art and Change Grant to build the next scene, “The Wave”. Built around a tensile fabric wave form designed by Simon de Aguero, video by Dan, and to-be-defined choreo that will integrate chronic illness communities into the hybrid muggle/ professional model, you are now as up-to-date as I am on the project ;-P (sort of). In actuality, this is just the start, and I will use the Patreon platform to go deeper into each concept and to update you on the project’s future trajectory.

I leave you with the first chapter of the book (poem) about truth and solidarity in the etheric.

Did you notice?The forest started to growHow I disappeared andMy body became leavesShades of green and whiteScattered between objectsBut not counted among them

IN AN EFFORT TO MOVE TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY, FUTURE CONTENT WILL BE AVAILABLE ON A SUBSCRIPTION BASIS THROUGH PATREON. FOR AS LITTLE AS $1, YOU CAN HELP MAKE WORK LIKE THIS POSSIBLE, RECEIVE AN INSIDE PERSPECTIVE, AND EVEN DIRECTLY INFLUENCE PRODUCTION. I AM THANKFUL TO EVERYONE WHO HAS BEEN FOLLOWING THIS JOURNEY SO FAR. HERE IS THE LINK TO SUPPORT: LION OR FOX ON PATREON